The Truth Will Set You On Fire
by thenerddess
Summary: Diggle and Roy return to the Foundry to find a devastated Felicity holding a bloody sword. 3x10 spoilers! My take on Team Arrow finding out Oliver's fate. Diggle's POV


Diggle and Roy had arrived back at the Foundry after a successful night of crime fighting. With Oliver gone to fight Ra's, it was up to him, Roy and Felicity to keep the city safe in his absence.

Diggle expected to find Felicity sitting at her computer, fingers flying across the keys, tracking, hacking and gathering all the information they would need to take down their next big bad.

What he found instead made him stop in his tracks, a suited up Roy pulling up just short of walking into his back.

Felicity was seated in her computer chair, back to her babies, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast to her lap. A cold shiver ran down his spine as his eyes landed on what lay in her lap.

A bloody sword.

Digg took a step forward, "Felicity?"

She jumped in her seat, Diggle deep voice amplified by the heavy dread-filled stillness of the Foundry.

Felicity didn't look up, she didn't move her eyes from her lap and when she spoke her voice small, shaky and broken

"M-Malcolm M-Merlyn stopped b-by."

Roy immediately took a step forward, rage immediately bubbling up. Diggle grabbed his forearm, shaking his head.

Felicity didn't seem to notice as she continued.

"He..he told me….O….Oliver is d-d-dead. "Oliv-ver Q-Queen is d-dead." T-that's what h-h-he said."

Diggle felt his stomach drop and a knot lodge itself in his throat. Roy pulled out of his grasp, turned and walk to the other side of the room, the new information hitting home. Hard.

Diggle couldn't believe it. Oliver was gone? He had lost another brother? Another person he loved that he couldn't save.

He must have been quite for too long because Felicity finally looked up and what he saw completely knocked the air out of his lungs.

Felicity big blue eyes, usually so full of warmth and that eternal spark, where completely dead. Like someone had completely sucked the soul right out of them. And he guessed in a way, they had.

Her usually creamy flushed skin was ghost white, her lips tinged slightly blue and now that she wasn't completely curled into herself, Digg could see she was shaking from head to toe.

"I t-tried t-t-to take a b-blood sample b-but m-m-my ha-aands w-w-would s-stop s-s-s-sha-aaking."

Digg could see the effort it took just to get that sentence out, like the most difficult code Felicity had ever encountered didn't compare to that simple sentence.

"W-why c-ca-an't I s-st-stop s-sha-aking?" She asked her teeth chattered.

Diggle quickly grabbed a blanket from the back of a nearby chair and moved towards Felicity.

After a slight struggle and finally coaxing the bloody sword from Felicity's vice like grip, he placed it on the table behind Felicity and quickly wrapped the blanket around her.

Diggle knelt before her and rubbing her arms and hands, trying to warm her up.

"Felicity, you're in shock. I know it's hard but I need you concentrate on regulating your breathing while we wait for you to warm up a little bit. Okay?"

She gave a stilted half nod and did as he asked. They sat in suffocating silence, Diggle running his hands up and down her arms, trying to get her circulation moving again.

To Diggle right, Roy was sitting on the ground with his back to the wall. Knees pulled up, head hung, hood still in place hiding his face from worried eyes.

Felicity voice unexpectedly broke the silence, startling Diggle into looking at the young woman in his arms. She had come back enough to herself for the worst of the shaking to have stopped and her speech was more coherent.

She looked at him with hopeful eyes, making Diggle's heart break even more for her.

"He's lying r-right? Malcolm, it's another one of his games, one of his tricks. Oliver can't be dead, h-he said that he was going to beat Ra's. I asked him to and h-h-he said that he couldn't say no to me, so he's okay, right? He survived on the island for years, he survived Amanda Waller, he bet Slade Wilson and he made it home. He can't be dead!"

"Felicity, I don't…" Diggle trailed off, not sure what to say to his devastated blonde partner. It could be one of Merlyn's games, but the only way to even begin to figure it out was to test the blood on the sword and they only person who could do that was currently falling apart in his arms.

Sensing his hesitancy, Felicity's blue eyes widened and she started shaking her head as big fat tears spilled down her cheeks.

"NO! No, no no no no no! He has to be alive, I didn't even get to say it back. I didn't get to tell him!"

Diggle frowned, "Tell him what?"

"I didn't get to tell him I love him back! He said it and then he walked out and I was so shocked I didn't even get to say it back. I wanted to, because I do but I didn't get to say it! What if he died, not knowing? What if I never get to tell him? Oh god!"

Felicity's tiny frame wracked violently with sobs, Digg pulled her forward, as she buried her face against his shoulder, wrapped in his big arms.

Trying desperately to hold together what was left of his friend and partner. Diggle felt his own emotions well up, a few tears escaping and disappearing into Felicity's blonde locks.

Roy hadn't moved from his spot but the shaking of his shoulders told Diggle everything. Team Arrow was in crisis, they had very possibly lost their friend and leader and in one member's case; the love of their life.

Now it was up to him to try and piece them back together long enough to figure out what had really happened to Oliver.

He sent up a silent prayer that this was all a misunderstanding. That Merlyn was playing some cruel sick joke because the alternative would quite possibly decimate Team Arrow.

And the scariest part was, Diggle wasn't sure that even his capable hands could put them back together.


End file.
